Simply being tax resident does not qualify you for healthcare under IKA. There are three conditions that qualify someone for healthcare under IKA, now EFKA:

1 You work in Greece and contribute to IKA.2 It is provided under an S1 form from your country of origin, e.g. in the case of the UK you are a State Pensioner.3 You have an IKA pension, and it is your main pension if you have pensions from more than one country.

Main here does not necessarily mean biggest but based on longest contribution. For example I have a UK State Pension and an IKA pension. My UK State Pension is based on over 30 years NI contribution in the UK. My IKA pension is based on a little over 13 years IKA contribution in Greece. I get healthcare, therefore, through an S1 form issued by DWP in the UK because my UK contributory years were the longest, i.e. the UK is taking responsibility for the cost of my healthcare.

There is strong evidence that healthcare for UK State Pensioners provided through an S1 form "will" continue after Brexit in the interim agreement reached between the EU and the UK a few weeks ago. As far as I can see that would include people who are resident here now but have not yet reached UK State Pension age. That agreement also shows that preserving the right to reside after Brexit "will" be easiest if you have a Permanent Residency Document. I put "will" in quotes because that interim agreement is not certain until a final agreement is reached.

I repeat what I have posted earlier; physical residency and tax residency are not necessarily the same thing, although there is a clear indication that they are supposed to be. There are plenty of people here with a Permanent Residency Document but who remain tax resident in the UK. Getting a Permanent Residency Document does not, at least at present, commit you to being tax resident in Greece. Obviously that could change at any time.

filippos wrote:We went to Kalyves KEP just before Christmas to ask about IKA book renewals ("Come back in January") and while there asked if our beige permits needed changing for blue. "I don't think so but I'll check" but couldn't contact the right person.... Walked in this a.m. .... a flood of apologies for being wrong about the permit and even more for being unable to take the IKA books without the blue permit.Some offices have clearly been informed somewhat late or not at all.

Some you win.......

This a.m. on the way to Xania we went into IKA office with:IKA booksPassportsResidents' Permits (Buff colour)Various bits of paper with our address shown.

Decided to produce only what was requestedGet to window and hand over IKA books; clerk keyed something into computer; two forms printed (as shown in first post in this thread by Yin&Yang)."Can I see your Passports, please?" Handed them over."Do you have copies?" "Errrr, No.""No matter. Please fill in the forms." The clerk disappeared with our Passports and returned with copies.Took our forms, handed back IKA books and Passports."It is done, thank you. Καλή Χρονιά."

Variability of what documents are required is always a fact of life in Greece. In my experience, when you ask KEP to carry out a procedure for you they are often more pedantic about what documents are needed than if you go directly to the organisation that the procedure is for, e.g. IKA in this case.

Warwick

PS Thanks for the heads up that they are asking for copies of passports. I always have my passport with me but tend only to take copies if I know they will be required. I know they need it when you first register with an S1 but I've never been asked at IKA since. Most unusual for IKA or the tax office to make the copies for you. They always used to send you away to get them yourself.

filippos wrote:'Er indoors has the useful facility of instantly changing expression from sunny smile to "I'm going to weep".

I'm heading that way.

We have buff residence permits and the copshop that issued them proudly announced that they were "permanent". This is sort of true, afaics, but maybe not ideal and it might depend on the mood of our IKA dude? We'd got well on the right side of the previous IKA lady, as she was taking a pretty advanced English exam and we both used to be EFL teachers, so we'd go in there and check out her latest assignments and tests and chat and 'business got done' to everybody's benefit But she left and the new bloke is OK but not totally sympathetic so far.

And don't get me started about the rather expensive 5-year saga of our house legalisation process

Two friends renewed their IKA books at the office on the Souda Road this morning. They were asked for photocopies of both their passports and their registration certificates. They only had the original beige ones, despite being here longer than 5 years, but that was not a problem.

They then went to the Office of Alien Affairs at the main police station in Chania and got issued with new Permanent Residency documents, i.e. blue ones. That took longer than getting the IKA books renewed but they left with the new documents. Despite the fact that Article 16 of the Directive, under which the Permanent Document is issued, states that you don't need to satisfy the conditions in Article 7 they were still asked for all the normal stuff, i.e. IKA book, house contract, UK P60, Greek tax return, Passport and photographs. It is possible that the process was quicker than usual because their previous beige certificates had been issued from the same office so they had the original file. Anybody having to do this at a different police station, e.g. because a lot of stations closed recently, may find there is still the usual delay of a few days.

Kilkis wrote:Two friends renewed their IKA books at the office on the Souda Road this morning. They were asked for photocopies of both their passports and their registration certificates. They only had the original beige ones, despite being here longer than 5 years, but that was not a problem.

They then went to the Office of Alien Affairs at the main police station in Chania and got issued with new Permanent Residency documents, i.e. blue ones. That took longer than getting the IKA books renewed but they left with the new documents. Despite the fact that Article 16 of the Directive, under which the Permanent Document is issued, states that you don't need to satisfy the conditions in Article 7 they were still asked for all the normal stuff, i.e. IKA book, house contract, UK P60, Greek tax return, Passport and photographs. It is possible that the process was quicker than usual because their previous beige certificates had been issued from the same office so they had the original file. Anybody having to do this at a different police station, e.g. because a lot of stations closed recently, may find there is still the usual delay of a few days.

Warwick

We sat in the queue this morning at IKA for 2hrs and 15 minutes. We had already picked up from earlier customers that copies of residence permits were needed to that took up all of 10 minutes for one of us! The job was done when it was our turn in 8 minutes flat! That included one blue permit and one buff one!

Next job is changing the buff one to blue at the police station in Vrysses. It was issued in Vamos which now has no police station, but we have been told to take passport, photographs, tenancy agreement, one utility bill and the prognosis is it will take about a week to get the blue replacement. So much for Article 16! We will also take tax declarations showing that we owe nothing, just in case.

An English friend of mine went down to the KEP office this morning in Vrysses with his blue residential permit and passport but was told they needed more because the rules had changed, they wanted to see tax numbers details on official paperwork, details of of mothers and fathers and then their signature was needed once the forms had been filled in, George the guy who was there signed so everything was good but his wife needs to go down to sign her form in person so she'll go tomorrow .

We went to Vrysses police station today to get Anna's buff residency permit changed to blue. Required documents were:

Tax papers showing tax number and confirmation that she owes the state no tax4 photographsone copy of her passport picture pageCopy of Utility bill (Cosmote bill in my name was good enough)Copy of Tenancy agreement (in my name, but has her signature on it)Copy of front page of IKA bookBuff residency permit.

No problem - in and out in 10 minutes, go back next Wednesday to pick up the blue permit. It seems Wednesday is the day for doing this at Vrysses.

No form to fill in, not interested in passports/residence permits. Did my husband's renewal ok - he's the State Pensioner; I'm classed as his "dependant" for IKA. Got our file out and checked our S1 forms; wanted evidence of tax paid (I think). We hadn't taken our clearance form with us, so we were asked the name of our accountant. They rang him, we went and got a coffee and came back to collect our books. Yet another variation, but no hassle at all with friendly staff, including one who was obviously a trainee.

Three friends and I renewed our IKA books at the office on the Souda Road, Chania this morning. Arrived 9:30. Tickets were about 20 past the one being shown. Left at 11:15 so 1 hour 45 minutes. We had all completed the legal declaration form in advance so we only had to sign it. We had also taken photocopies of residency documents, 3 blue and 1 beige, and passports plus originals. The originals were inspected. For each one of us it only took a couple of minutes.

Our Experience in Applying for a Permanent Blue Residency PermitYou will know from the first post in this thread that we had already had our IKA books renewed this year and so our application for a Permanent Residency Permit was made for the purpose of dotting I's and crossing T's, as well as the fact that having lived here for five years now, we wanted to have one.We first visited a photographic shop in order to have passport sized photos taken and were advised by the shop owner that we would also be asked for a CD containing our photos which he provided he said, at no extra cost. We told him that we were on our way to the Police station just off the Souda Road and he told us that it had closed around seven months ago. So we headed for the big Police station a bit further on, in Xania. By the way, if you are not familiar with visiting this station, parking is very difficult in the surrounding streets because they are packed with already parked vehicles. When you enter the Police station we asked at the desk and were directed to the first floor. When you reach the floor from the staircase, take a right turn, then another and the office you want is on the left - Room 110 - for Alien Services. There was no queue and the staff were friendly. Our files, having been deposited with the station upon the closing of the one off Souda Road, had to be searched for and we probably waited for about twenty minutes for these to be found. In the meantime we were asked for:

Two passport photos (no CD required!)Proof of income (P60s and our Greek bank books)Proof of residency (in our case the land purchase, electricity and water bills sufficed because our house build paperwork is with the Building Inspectors awaiting our final inspection)PassportsBeige 'temporary' residency permitsIKA books

Please Note: Whilst the office were happy to photocopy anything we might not have a copy of, they do ask for one photocopy of each document.

Note Further: In our case we were not asked for our Greek 'nil' tax returns or tax numbers; perhaps presentation of our IKA books satisfied them in this regard?

Note: We are not married and have different surnames. Some documents were in our joint names (land purchase), some in only my partner's name (electricity bill). I do not have my own income. This did not present a problem.

We were at the Police station for one and a half hours in total while we waited for everything to be processed and WE WERE PRESENTED WITH OUR NEW PERMANENT PERMITS at the end of the process.

Kilkis wrote: We had all completed the legal declaration form in advance so we only had to sign it.

Warwick

Likewise we completed ours before turning up, and the first thing the young lady behind the counter did was to give us each another identical form and asked us to complete it! We hadn't signed the one we had prepared, but signed the 'new' one and I think that she chucked the one we had prepared previously in the bin! Tra la.

BTW - do you know what happens if you can't get to IKA to renew your book until March or April? Bob.

As far as I am aware, people who have an IKA book through an S1 form cannot renew it online. KEP tried for me a couple of years ago but said it wasn't possible. I am not sure what the situation is if you have an IKA book because you are working and contributing to IKA.